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Newgrange - new facts not noticed before.

In Ireland, near the town of Bru-na-Boyne stands the majestic Newgrange Mound, one of the oldest buildings in Western Europe, built about 5,000 years ago. Respectable age and large size are not the only features of this monument. Inside the mound is a long corridor made of boulders. The length of the passage is 19 meters and it leads to the chamber, the base of which is composed of vertically placed monoliths weighing from 20 to 40 tons each.

The passage is oriented to the southeast exactly where the sun rises on the day of the winter solstice. For several days from December 19 to 23, the first rays of sunlight penetrate through the window above the corridor and illuminate for 15 minutes the altar inside the burial chamber and the entire chamber. In ancient times, this phenomenon was called a "solar miracle".

Since the mound allows to determine the exact date of the astronomical event of the sunrise on the day of the winter solstice, it has an astronomical function in addition to the cult and burial ones. By modern definition, the place where regular observations of an astronomical event were made is an observatory. The same principle of reverse sighting, when observing not the luminary itself, but a beam of its rays, was applied in the Trypillian temple-observatory near Nebelivka in Ukraine and in the Egyptian temple in Karnak. However, the astronomical function of Newgrange Mound is not limited to one event. The mound is a part of the mound complex. There are many ancient tombs around and their locations were chosen not by chance.

 650 m east from the center of the Newgrange mound there is the mound number 019-051 "Long Mound". It has an azimuth of 88.5 degrees. To the observer who would stand on top of the Newgrange Mound, the Sun rises in this direction on the days of the equinox, when the length of the day is equal to the length of the night. To the northwest from the observer there is a large mound Knowth. It is 1300 m from the center of Newgrange mound, azimuth 305 degrees. Sunset on the day of the summer solstice is observed in this sector of the sky. If you compare the distance between the two mounds with the previous segment of 650 m, a simple mathematical proportion is obvious:

650: 1300 = 1: 2

To the northeast from the observer's site is Dowth Mound. It is distant at 1950 m and has an azimuth of 58 degrees. This is the direction where the sun rises on the summer solstice, when the longest day of the year. The distance between this mound-visor and the observation point is exactly three times larger than the distance between the observation point and the mound "019-051":

650: 1950 = 1: 3

Dowth is also a long mound and horseshoe-shaped and turned by a passage to the observer's point. 

In the south-east we have two more mounds (019-049001 and 019-058001 / B) at distances of 540 and 1000 m, respectively, and they are located at azimuths of 128 and 140 degrees. In this sector, the sun rises on the day of the winter solstice. The Newgrange Mound is dedicated to this event. After the shortest day of the year on the winter solstice, the time of day gradually increases and a new astronomical cycle begins. In the same azimuths there are stones placed on either side of the entrance to the Newgrange passage. Around it are other stones on the so-called "astronomical azimuths", which are the points of rise and set of the Sun and Moon at the culminations of their cycles. These stones and azimuths are shown in the diagram below. Most likely, they have a symbolic meaning, because from the top of the mound stones are below the visible horizon and indicate the directions where astronomical events occur.

Earlier, when talking about the astronomical function of Newgrange, researchers paid attention only to the stone corridor inside the mound. Now, with the substantiation of astronomical and mathematical connections with other mounds, it has turned into a mound-astronomical complex, an observatory. It is similar to the complexes in Ukraine Sursky Mound in Dnieper and Observatory Bezvodivka in Chernihiv region. In Ukrainian complexes, there are also mathematical proportions in the distances between the mounds-visors and most of the "astronomical azimuths" are repeated. The presence of such monuments, which are separated by thousands of kilometers, testifies to the existence of the spread of astronomical knowledge and mythology along with the expansion of the Mound Culture in the Eurasian space.